Austrian presence in West Germany
Österreichische Verbindungsstelle in Deutschland – 1949.
The passport here is very interesting, especially for historians or collectors of Allied occupational material relating to the years 1945 to 1951.
Austria was bound to the Allied agreements of post-war Europe with regarding to its status and presence in the occupied zones of Germany and also after the creation of West Germany in 1949.
At the Moocow conference of October 30th 1943 it was decided that the three allied powers who where fighting together against the axis, the US, UK and Soviet Union, will establish an organization or commission that will advise and study the political problems in post-war Europe, after the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies. This commission was called the EAC – European Advisory Commission; which was dissolved at the Potsdam conference of August 1945.
Allied Control Commission (ACC) was the body that enabled the above mentioned allied powers to govern and control defeated Germany and the former axis counties; thus Austria, upon liberation, was to be controlled as well by the four allied powers: US, UK, French and the USSR (Vienna too was separated into 4 occupational zones). The Allied Control Commission for Austria was approved by all sides by July 24th with the “Agreement on control machinery in Austria“.
Austria was permitted to conduct her own foreign relations after an addition to that above mentioned contract was added on June 28th 1946, seen also as the “Second Control Agreement”, but with regards to diplomatic relations with the newly formed West German government, well, that was another mater at all. At first, she was not permitted to hold diplomatic or consular missions in Germany, and this could explain why this issued passport in Frankfurt was not issued by an Austrian consulate but rather by an Austrian “legation” or “joint-office” of some sort.
Botschaft der Republik Osterreich (Bonn)
Issued on July 13th 1949, the applied “consular” stamp reads for “Austrian Joint-Office – the American occupational Zone for Germany“. The passport has four allied military government visas inside and war-time issued residence permits (!) too, since they were not changed to Austrian permits yet. So we can find here a very interesting passport with a mixture of visas and permits inside.
Another passport relating to the Allied Control Commission for Austria was published by me earlier:
Allied control commission for Austria
I have added images of this post-war Austrian passport.
Enjoy!
Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.
